The invention relates to a connector assembly for connecting optical or electrical conductors having connector position assurance (CPA) mechanism to assure proper positioning of mating connectors in a mated position.
Such connector assemblies are known, generally in the electrical industry, for example from patent publications DE 195 32 623 A1 and EP 0 625 809 B1. Since the force required to effect a connection between mating connectors increases with the number of contacts to be connected, mechanical aids, such as for example connection slides displaceable perpendicularly to the insertion direction, are used to simplify mating. These arrangements are know in the industry as connector position assurance (CPA) devices.
Since these arrangements contain a large number of contacts and several parts for the CPA mechanism, dimensional tolerances may cause a problem in that the connector housing may be fully inserted into the coupling member even though the connection slide may still not be fully snapped into the coupling member. If the connection slide is thus not adequately snapped in, loss of electrical or optical contact may occur. An attempt to push the incompletely inserted connection slide into the mating connector may lead to the housing of one of these plastic components being over-compressed and damaged.
If such a connector assembly is used not only for electrical contacts but also for connecting optical fibers, care must be taken to ensure that any gap between the end faces of the optical fibers to be mated is minimized. Since, in contrast to electrical contact, optical fibers have no interlocking contact zone, the end faces of the optical fibers must be positioned as close to one another as possible, and also aligned laterally creating a more difficult positional tolerance situation.
An object of the invention is to provide a connector assembly to ensure that the distance between the end faces of the optical fibers is minimized and the positional accuracy of the mated fibers is enhanced.
This and other objects are achieved by providing a connector wherein on at least one mating half or connection slide has at least one area constructed to be resiliently deformable upon full actuation of the connection slide.
Having at least one resiliently deformable area on one of these components facilitates the use of the connector assembly for connecting optical fibers. Since, in the case of a optical fiber results in a marked impairment in transmission quality, it is important for the optical fiber end faces to lie as precisely as possible opposite one another and to be only slightly spaced from one another. This is ensured by the resilient area. The connection slide may be inserted into the coupling member as far as the snapped-in position while the resilient area allows the fiber end to be accurately positioned.